Florida
The Confidante Miami Beach unveiled a $3.5 million meeting and event space renovation in late September following a technology and design enhancement the month before. Nearly all of the hotel’s 10,000 square feet of indoor meeting spaces were renovated, including the 2,000-square-foot Century Ballroom, which benefited from new technology such as a wireless connect LCD projector and an 18-foot drop-down screen. The Confidante offers 363 guest rooms and 16 suites, with a design celebrating the golden era of 1950s Miami Beach. Part of The Unbound Collection by Hyatt, a highlight of the property is its Southern cuisine-inspired restaurant Bird & Bone, led by chef Richard Hales, which has joined the hotel’s hip-hop-themed Asian-American restaurant TALDE Miami Beach.
Georgia
Great Wolf Lodge Georgia, which is under construction about an hour south of Atlanta in LaGrange, set an opening date of May 31, 2018. The $170 million facility will include a 100,000-square-foot waterpark, the 40,000-square-foot Great Wolf Adventure Park and a 20,000-square-foot conference center with a ballroom that can be used for corporate meetings and events. The property will also feature 457 guest rooms. The opening will bring the number of Great Wolf Resorts venues to 17, with one recently opened in Minneapolis and another scheduled for a summer 2018 opening outside of Chicago.
North Carolina
Benchmark added the High Hampton Inn to its portfolio. Located on Hampton Lake, a 35-acre lake which it owns near Cashiers, the expansive 1,400-acre property sits in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains. The 115-room resort opened in 1932 and features 31 rooms on the second and third floors of the building, along with 84 rooms in guest cottages that surround the main lodge; many of the cottages feature in-room fireplaces, screen porches and decks. Suitable for executive retreats, the entire resort can also be booked for a conference or special event. The property also offers an 18-hole George W. Cobb-designed golf course, five tennis courts, a European-style spa, hiking trails and the privately owned lake for fishing, swimming, boating and other water-related activities.
The StateView Hotel opened in the heart of North Carolina State University’s Centennial Campus in Raleigh. The hotel, owned by Noble Investment Group, offers 164 guest rooms and suites, a business center, contemporary fitness facilities and more than 10,000 square feet of meeting space, along with the chef-driven restaurant Flask & Beaker, serving modern American gastro pub cuisine. The Marriott Autograph Collection Hotels property is set on the shores of Lake Raleigh and surrounded by a protected forest and walking trails. The StateView is a central component of a 9 million-square-foot commercial, residential, laboratory and research facility.
Texas
Iconic downtown Dallas hotel The Statler reopened after a $225 million redevelopment. The Curio Collection by Hilton property originally opened in 1956 as one of Conrad Hilton’s first convention properties and, as one of its distinctions, The Statler claims to be the hotel where “elevator music” was brought to the industry. The Aimbridge Hospitality-managed property offers 33,000 square feet of meeting and event space, including 10 meeting rooms, entertainment suites, an outdoor Garden Court and a 13,154-square-foot Grand Ballroom. The mixed-use development also features 219 residences, a variety of restaurants—including five in the hotel operated by Dallas-based Epic F&B and led by chef Graham Dodds—nightlife, retail outlets, meeting space and a large-scale event venue.